Diabetic patients typically administer insulin to sustain their physiological conditions. Typically, these patients administer doses of either fast acting or slow acting insulin using needle type syringes, for example, prior to meals, and/or at a suitable time during the course of each day contemporaneously with the blood glucose level testing using fingerstick blood glucose testing, for example. If insulin is not suitably administered, the diabetic patients risk serious if not fatal damage to the body.
Continued development and improvement in the external infusion pump therapy in recent years have drawn much appeal to the diabetic patients for, among others, improved management of diabetes by better regulating and controlling the intake of insulin. Typically, the patient inserts a cannula which is connected to as infusion tubing attached to an external pump, and insulin is administered based on a preprogrammed basal profiles. Moreover, the external infusion devices presently available include computational capability to determined suitable bolus doses such as carbohydrate bolus and correction bolus, for example, to be administered in conjunction with the infusion device executing the patient's basal profile.
Commercially available infusion devices such as insulin pumps are programmable and include sophisticated functionalities to enhance therapy management. Consistent with the sophistication of these devices, it is often cumbersome and trying to program these complex devices to the desired delivery, notification, modification and/or other adjustments or settings to be suitable for each user's physiology or therapy.
Programming such infusion devices require the entry of many variables and parameters, some of which are entered or provided into the device based, at least in part on the knowledge or experience of the user and/or the healthcare provider. For example, to modify one or more basal delivery settings, the infusion device user may use prior knowledge based on past experience, in addition to subjectively determined parameters, for example, the time period for inputting measurement values of the blood glucose level when determining a correction bolus amount.
It goes without saying for diabetics on insulin pump therapy, continual refinement of the basal insulin delivery rate, insulin to carbohydrate ratio determination, insulin sensitivity level, duration of insulin action, to name a few, are important in achieving successful therapy management. Often times, however, the refinement process is complex and iterative.